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T20 World Cup | Gary Stead laments ICC delaying Adam Milne's entry to squad

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New Zealand head coach Gary Stead has expressed his disappointment over the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s refusal to quickly approve the addition of Adam Milne to the Blackcaps squad in place of injured Lockie Ferguson before the game against Pakistan. 

Stead said that the Blackcaps team management made 'pretty hard' efforts to persuade the ICC Committee to approve Milne as a 'like-for-like replacement' for Ferguson but they were said that those decisions are not approved in a day. Stead added that they will seek clarification from the global governing body.

“We tried pretty hard to get across the line with the ICC our replacement player, but it wasn't to be. That was really disappointing for us because Adam Milne is someone waiting in the wings as a like-for-like replacement,” Stead said after the match. 

“What we were told is they don't give clearance on the same day, so we'll question that reason and continue to seek clarification on that,” Stead added. 

Stead lamented that the team management had to involve in negotiations with the ICC until an hour and a half before the scheduled start of the game and hence it led to chaos and confusion in the team management. 

He said that they had to change the playing XI on as many as three occasions and were forced to play Ish Sodhi on the Sharjah surface that they assessed would have been more suitable for pacers such as Milen due to variable bounce on offer.

"You always plan to have the changes like this, the most unsettling thing for us is we probably changed the team three times today on that decision. Originally we thought we'd got the clearance for Adam to play, but then it's been turned down. So we were questioning it with the ICC as much as an hour and a half out from the game and arriving there."

“We weren't going to play Ish Sodhi – we felt that pitch was one that would suit the seamers a lot more and the up-and-down nature of the pitch and the work we'd done around scouting and what the data was telling us was that it pointed towards seam bowlers and pace bowlers being more effective. That's the way we would have gone,” he added.

New Zealand were defeated by an in-form Pakistan side who are firing all cylinders in Group 2 and have defeated both the Blackcaps and the arch-rivals India in consecutive games.

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